Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

The conspiracy theorists who just aren’t able to accept the fact that Barack Obama was indeed born in Hawaii are latching themselves onto a new claim they say “proves” a hoax. Here’s their new claim:

Obama born in hospital that did not exist yet

This I just found and it seems to be a smoking gun. There are all kinds of reports about fraud coming out, but this is a blatant error that frauders would easily miss!

“I just checked the official web site for Kapiolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital and according to the information there, the name of the hospital at the time of his birth should have been Kauikeolani Children’s Hospital. According to the web site the name didn’t change to Kapiolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital until Kauikeolani “Children’s Hospital merged with Kapi‘olani Maternity Home in 1978. So how could his official long form birth certificate that was generated in 1961 have the name of the hospital that wasn’t created until 1978?”

Wow. Look at all those hyperlinks! With so many “sources,” it must be true!

Or not. The first thing you should do if you want to see if it’s true is to check those links. Two of them connect to wikipedia articles defining the words “website” and “birth certificate.” A third link connects to a wikinvest encyclopedia article describing what a “hospital” is and does. Only one link connects to any information about Kapiolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital — and that link is to the Wikipedia page for that hospital. As we all know, crowdsourced Wikipedia pages often contain incorrect information.

Let’s check for some independent sources on this. How about a search through the world’s largest book archive, Google Books?

Here’s a result from 1955, American journal of obstetrics and gynecology, Volume 69:

Here are a few excerpts from Social service in Hawaii, a book by Margaret Mary Louise Catton that was published in 1959, two years before Barack Obama was born:

Here’s a reference to Kapiolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital in a Digest of court cases from 1934:

There’s even a court reference there if you want to look it up.

Clearly, Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital existed long before Barack Obama was born. No “hoax.”

U.S. Representative Lynn Woolsey, who represents the 6th district of California, the area just to the north of San Francisco, spoke in serious tones this week about the dangers of the prolonged failure of the war in Afghanistan to bring security, stability and an end to corruption there. Woolsey said,

“the American people are tired of being talked down to about this war, tired of being told everything is fine and under control, tired of being urged to stay the course, tired of talk about progress that seems to be little more than an illusion.

The President reiterated last night that we will begin to bring our troops home in July, but there’s plenty of evidence to suggest we’re ramping up this war instead of winding it down.

Earlier this month, for example, 1,400 additional marine combat forces were deployed, with the possibility of additional mini-surges during the spring, that would push our troop levels in Afghanistan to the 100,000 mark.

We’re also using heavily armored tanks for the first time, and there are reports that we’re considering expanding the war across the border in an unprecedented way, with risky and dangerous special operations ground raids into Pakistan.

Does this sound like a war that’s drawing to a close?”

From MotherJones.com, The House GOP’s Plan to Redefine Rape

For years, federal laws restricting the use of government funds to pay for abortions have included exemptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. (Another exemption covers pregnancies that could endanger the life of the woman.) But the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” a bill with 173 mostly Republican co-sponsors that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has dubbed a top priority in the new Congress, contains a provision that would rewrite the rules to limit drastically the definition of rape and incest in these cases.

With this legislation, which was introduced last week by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Republicans propose that the rape exemption be limited to “forcible rape.” This would rule out federal assistance for abortions in many rape cases, including instances of statutory rape, many of which are non-forcible. For example: If a 13-year-old girl is impregnated by a 24-year-old adult, she would no longer qualify to have Medicaid pay for an abortion. (Smith’s spokesman did not respond to a call and an email requesting comment.)

Given that the bill also would forbid the use of tax benefits to pay for abortions, that 13-year-old’s parents wouldn’t be allowed to use money from a tax-exempt health savings account (HSA) to pay for the procedure. They also wouldn’t be able to deduct the cost of the abortion or the cost of any insurance that paid for it as a medical expense.

So what they’re saying is that girls and women who are either drugged up or under the threat of force or coerced would be ineligible for a government assisted abortion. A woman could be surrounded by fifteen guys and repetedly threatened with violence while being gang banged on the pinball machine and still not be able to get help terminating a resulting pregnancy. There is also a wonderful little tidbit in the article pointing out that there is no federally mandated term “forcible rape” and very few local laws use that term. So, taking this bill to it’s extremes, a woman could be ineligible for an assisted abortion unless she was shot or stabbed during the encounter. The language is just that vague and it doesn’t offer a definition for “forcible rape.”

Thank you, Republicans, I’m sure your constituents feel much better knowing you’re there to stand up for justice and common decency. Oh, and by the way? You SUCK.

With regards to all the tax cut coverage, right now I’m more interested in DADT.

Right now I’m watching CNN and it seems the Senate is now voting on a stand-alone bill regarding DADT. No news on what the result is yet.

The motion passed, 65-31, DADT is repealed. Now Obama has to sign it (due next week) and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has to certify it.

Basically, this is a repost of a thread I started on another forum. I know I should have some grand thing to say after my long absence, but…I’m not sure how I could have said it differently.

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To say I didn’t see this coming would be a lie. I saw it…because the Republicans have been doing this since Obama took office. But still, this reeks of a surprising amount of petulance as well as a willingness to fuck over the whole country just to get their way.

Republicans Want to Extend Their Tax Cuts, Will Hold Breath Until They Get Their Way

WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans threatened Wednesday to block virtually all legislation until expiring tax cuts are extended and a bill is passed to fund the federal government, vastly complicating Democratic attempts to leave their own stamp on the final days of the post-election Congress.

“While there are other items that might ultimately be worthy of the Senate’s attention, we cannot agree to prioritize any matters above the critical issues of funding the government and preventing a job-killing tax hike,” all 42 GOP senators wrote in a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. The 42 signatures are more than enough to block action on almost any item he wishes to advance.

The threat does not apply to a new arms control treaty with Russia that is pending, since it would be debated under rules that differ from those that apply to routine legislation. President Barack Obama has made ratification of the pact a top priority.

But it does threaten Democratic attempts to lift the Pentagon’s ban on openly gay members of the military, and a separate item to give legal status to young illegal immigrants who attend college or serve in the military. The tax and spending bills are likely to be the last to pass before Congress adjourns for the year.

One of the best qualities of U.S. Representative Lynn Woolsey is that her congressional activism doesn’t follow the ebb and flow of the news cycle. When she identifies an issue that matters, she keeps paying attention to it long after the collective attention of journalists has turned to something new.

Thus, although it was weeks ago when revelations of American military contractor corruption in Afghanistan took place, Lynn Woolsey is still speaking about the matter. Why? Congress still hasn’t taken care of the problem: The American military is paying big money to private contractor corporations, who in turn are paying protection money to Afghan warlords, who then give the money to the Taliban, who the American military is supposed to be fighting in the first place.

This week, Representative Woolsey linked the corruption to a fundamentally irrational structure of our nation’s military misadventure in Afghanistan, and renewed her call for a pullout of American soldiers from central Asia:

“At a time when communities here at home are crying out for investment in schools, hospitals, and other infrastructure, it’s galling to think that American taxpayer dollars are supporting the kind of thuggery in Afghanistan that is quite possibly endangering our troops. It’s bad enough, Madam Speaker, that the American people are being asked to pay for our failed war. Now it appears that they’re being asked to pay for the wrong side.

Madam Speaker, we simply cannot sustain a counterterrorism strategy that has us doing business, however indirectly, with the terrorists themselves. It’s illogical and it’s unconscionable. This is just one more piece of evidence that this war is failing the American people, undermining instead of advancing our national security objectives. It’s time for a radical change in our policy. It’s time to bring our troops home.”

I am endorsing Marcy Winograd in her race to represent California’s 36th District in Congress.  She is a true progressive who will stand up to the military industrial complex, the medical industrial complex, and other corporate interests in Washington.  Marcy is genuine in her concern for the people.

There’s a powerful bill in the U.S. House of Representatives right now that deals with the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling crisis in a clear, direct way. H.R. 5248, the No New Drilling Act, looks at the damage caused by the gigantic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and proposes a restoration of the moratorium on the expansion of offshore drilling.

U.S. Representative Danny Davis has not signed on as as a cosponsor to the No New Drilling Act. Why? He’s been busy.

Busy doing what? Busy supporting another piece of legislation: H. Res. 1297.

What would H. Res. 1297 do? It would recognize the importance of American Craft Beer Week.

The resolution, supported by Congressman Davis, notes the serious contributions of American craft beers, observing that, “American craft brewers increase awareness of the differences in the flavor, aroma, color, alcohol content, body, and other complex variables of beer.”

Come on, Representative Davis. If you have time to sit in your office, noting the differences in the complex variables of beer, you have time to sign your name to H.R. 5248, and take on the serious offshore drilling crisis. Please – cosponsor the No New Drilling Act.

Reshma Saujani, Democratic challenger in New York’s 14th congressional district, released the results of a survey of her supporters yesterday. Among the findings: 45 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that “special interests are the main reason for the partisanship in Washington”, while 33 percent agreed “that Democrats and Republicans simply have completely different worldviews”.

An effort to understand this item in Saujani’s survey requires a good deal of interpretation. In order for the survey question to make sense, there must be a meaningful distinction between “special interests” and organizations that are sincerely motivated by particular worldviews. The survey question implies that such a distinction exists, that there are organizations that have ideological foundations on the one hand, and special interest organizations that are motivated by self-interest without regard for ideology on the other hand.

Few would contest that ideological groups exist. However, many point out that organizations that claim to be ideological in nature also promote the interests of particular members of society. Worldviews often happen to be rather economically convenient.

The existence of powerful groups of people motivated purely by the desire for practical benefit should also be a matter of serious doubt. Are ambitious and selfish people truly without a coherent worldview? One might argue that lobbying firms, as an example, are motivated solely to promote the interests of their clients, but even if that were the pure motivation of those firms, lobbyists’ clients themselves can still be motivated by ideology. In some cases, such beliefs are easy to identify. In other cases, the beliefs may lie beneath the surface, but still present an active influence.

Even in the case of a corproation that hires lobbyists to explicitly bribe members of Congress to support certain legislation, ideological beliefs would still be in action. The corporation would be interested in advancing the belief that the government should serve the interests of private industry, and that financial representation is more important than the electoral influence of the voter.

There is a worldview inherent in even the most corrupt legislative activity. it may be a worldview that most Americans disagree with, but then, that’s the point. Even in extreme cases, the distinction between self-interest and worldview is incoherent. “Special interests” turn out merely to be interests with which we personally disagree because our worldviews will not admit their worth.

To identify this problem in Reshma Saujani’s survey may seem like pointless quibbling. However, attention to detail and the ability to focus with logical precision are characteristics that a legislator should not be without. It’s also important that members of Congress have the integrity to seek out the opinions of their constituents through accurate and respectful means, rather than through slanted mechanisms designed to communicate ideas favorable to their own agendas.

It’s my opinion that the phrase “special interests” isn’t meaningful enough to be included in any political survey. Your worldview may prompt you to come to a different conclusion.